Corpora: hip hop summary
Meunier Fanny
meunier at mait.ucl.ac.be
Wed Dec 5 17:41:49 UTC 2001
Dear all,
Thanks a lot to those who replied to the 'hip hop' query.
Here is a summary of the answers for the hip hop fans!
Best,
Fanny
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From: "R.Evans" <R.J.Evans at wlv.ac.uk>
I can't vouch for the validity of this statement, but while browsing the
internet, I found
"The word ?hip-hop? comes from the Senegalese word 'hipi' meaning, 'to open
one's eyes to the world we live in.`"
at http://www.du.edu/~pheath/pv/introduction.html .
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From: Antoinette Renouf <ant at rdues.liv.ac.uk>
i don't know actually,
but I suppose it is a combination of hip = cool
and hop = dance!
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From: Steve Renals <s.renals at dcs.shef.ac.uk>
OED online says
orig. U.S.
[f. hip, reduplicated with alteration of vowel as a jingling refrain
(see quots. 19822, 1984), perh. influenced by HIP a.; cf. BEBOP n.,
HOP n.2]
...
1982 N.Y. Times 3 Sept. C4/6 He [sc. D. J. Hollywood] phrased to the
beat of a funk record and paced himself with a repeating refrain,
usually..a variation on the nonsense formula `hip, hop,
hip-hip-de-hop'.]
1984 S. HAGER Hip Hop 109/2 Hip hopfunky music suitable for rapping; a
collective term used to describe rap/graffiti/breaking/scratchin'. The
term was invented by Starski, who used to chant: `To the hip hop, hip
hop, don't stop that body rock.'
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From: Martin Wynne <martin.wynne at computing-services.oxford.ac.uk>
I tried some corpora for help. None of the BNC hits look useful. From the
Bank of English, there are over 2000 hits so it's difficult to read all of
them, but they do yield references to the 1982 hit by man Parrish "Hip Hop,
Be Bop" and lots of references to the origins of the genre and the term in
New York in the early 80s.
So I went to the most obvious source:
Entry printed from Oxford English Dictionary Online
© Oxford University Press 2001
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hip-hop, n. (and a.) SECOND EDITION:
ADDITIONS 1993
orig. U.S.
(hphp) Also as two words. [f. hip, reduplicated with alteration of vowel as
a jingling refrain (see quots. 19822, 1984), perh. influenced by HIP a.; cf.
BEBOP n., HOP n.2]
a. A youth subculture, originating amongst the Black and Hispanic
populations of New York City, which comprises elements such as rap music,
graffiti art, and break-dancing, as well as distinctive codes of dress.
b. The music associated with this subculture, characterized by freq.
politically inspired or motivated raps, delivered above spare, electronic
backing, and harsh rhythm tracks. Also attrib. or as adj. Cf. *RAP n.1 5 c.
1982 N.Y. Rocker Jan. 28/4 Hip-hop DJ's can repeat ever-shorter
phrases..with a little nimble-fingered action on the rim or the label. [1982
N.Y. Times 3 Sept. C4/6 He [sc. D. J. Hollywood] phrased to the beat of a
funk record and paced himself with a repeating refrain, usually..a variation
on the nonsense formula 'hip, hop, hip-hip-de-hop'.] 1983 Time 21 Mar. 72/1
This subculture, nicknamed hip hop, is about assertiveness, display, pride,
status and competition, particularly among males. Clothes are not only a
part of this offhand cultural statement; they are a kind of uniform for
cultural challenge. 1984 S. HAGER Hip Hop 109/2 Hip hopfunky music suitable
for rapping; a collective term used to describe
rap/graffiti/breaking/scratchin'. The term was invented by Starski, who used
to chant: 'To the hip hop, hip hop, don't stop that body rock.' 1985 Buzz
Aug. 24/1 If your youth club is full of skinhead and hip-hop fans they're
not going to be interested in a heavy metal band! 1987 New Statesman 27 Nov.
28/3 John Ellis' The Social History of the Machine Gun..traces this
accessory of gangsters, terrorists and hip-hop poseurs from its 18th-century
birth. 1989 Q Nov. 13/1 Since the demise of disco and the early '80s fad for
'blue-eyed Soul', there has been no mainstream dance music stylehip hop
always retained too strong a racial identity to make serious inroads.
Hence hip-hop v. intr., to dance to or perform hip-hop; hip-hopper n., a
member of the hip-hop culture; hip-hopping ppl. a. and vbl. n.
[1980 D. HARRY Rapture in L. A. Stanley Rap: the Lyrics (1993) 35 And you
hip hop And you don't stop Just blast off A sure shot.] 1983 People Weekly
(U.S.) 17 Jan. 52/1 Born in the Bronx and Harlem in the mid-'70s as a
reaction against disco, rap lays a hip-hopping patter of chanted, rhymed
lyrics over a funk beat. 1983 Time 21 Mar. 72/2 The sartorial flash of the
hip hoppers. 1984 Time 19 Mar. 56/2 Audiences..gave the record its initial
push,..hip-hopped to it in clubs and break-danced to it in the streets this
past summer. 1988 Washington Post 8 July N17/2 Their strong allegiance to
the booming suburban scene has much to do with the late-breaking, mindless
hip-hopping of D.C. wannabeats. 1989 Observer 24 Sept. 37/4 The look is
squeaky clean. In its simplest form, the hip-hopper's kit consists of a
hooded baggy top, tracksuit pants and training shoes.
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>From John Shippey <john_shippey at hotmail.com>
Hip hop is the culture from which rap emerged. Initially it consisted of
four main elements; graffiti art, break dancing, dj (cuttin' and scratching)
and MCing (rapping). Hip hop is a lifestyle with its own language, style of
dress, music and mind set
that is continuously evolving. Nowadays because break dancing and graffiti
aren't as prominent the words 'rap' and 'hip hop' have been used
interchangeably. However it should be noted that all aspects of hip hop
culture still exists
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>From Zhiping Zheng <zzheng at umich.edu>
I typed the question of "What is the origin of hip hop?" to my AnswerBus
system ( http://misshoover.si.umich.edu/~zzheng/qa-new/ ), and I got
following answers: (I don't know if they are correct though)
1. http://www.qmw.ac.uk/~english/cbl/project/generation/hip.htm
With its origins in sampling two records by cutting them up on turntables,
and freestyling vocals over the top, hip hop is possibly the most
postmodern of all musical genres.
2. http://www.daveyd.com/addissablackart.html
Understand that no matter what you THINK, Hip Hop is of soley African
origin.
3. http://www.mrblunt.com/?sec=culture&page=origin
Hip-Hop is relative to each individual, different experiences and
different ancestry will make the origin of any element, different and they
are all still right.
4. http://www.daveyd.com/addissablackart.html
No one can show me a Hip Hop trend outside of using the Latin term loc
(from loco) that is of ANYTHING other than African origin.
5. http://www.plato.nl/e-primer/breakbeat.htm
The rhythms are more or less Trip-Hop in using breakbeats that origin from
Hip-Hop, James Brown and Meat Beat Manifesto.
6. http://www.unc.edu/dth/archives/1998/02/021298/div.html
These are the four questions commonly asked by people who have no sense of
hip-hop culture and its origin.
7. http://www.tunes.co.uk/tunes/comments/522.html
If you want some insight into the origin of Hip Hop, there is no better
place to start than this top of the pile complilation of breaks from DJ
Pogo and the Harmless Crew.
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Fanny MEUNIER
Chargé de cours
Département de Langues et Littératures Germaniques
Université Catholique de Louvain
1, Place Blaise Pascal
B-1348 Louvain-la-Neuve
Belgium
tel: +32 10 474974 (Linguistique)/ +32 10 478572 (Didactique)
fax: +32 10 474942
http://www.fltr.ucl.ac.be/FLTR/GERM/ETAN/CECL/cecl.html
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